Carlton Cannes
Cannes, France
Duke of Westminster
1879 – 1953
“Bendor”, England's richest man and Chanel's companion. 1 hotel of the collection keeps track of him.
His story
Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, known to all as “Bendor”, inherited one of the greatest fortunes in Britain at the age of twenty and spent it with legendary extravagance, between Cheshire, Mayfair, Scotland and France. For a decade he was the companion of Coco Chanel, and his yachts, jewels and villas made him a familiar figure on the Riviera.
Born to a fortune
He was born on 19 March 1879 at Eaton Hall, the family seat in Cheshire, the son of Victor, Earl Grosvenor, and Lady Sibell Lumley. His nickname came from Bend Or, his grandfather’s racehorse, winner of the 1880 Derby, itself named after the family’s lost coat of arms, “Azure, a bend or”. His father died when he was a small boy, and after Eton he succeeded his grandfather as duke in 1899, taking his seat in the House of Lords on 20 March 1900.
Soldier, sportsman, grand seigneur
He served in the Boer War as aide-de-camp to Lord Milner and then Lord Roberts, and raced motorboats for Great Britain at the London Olympics of 1908. In the First World War he developed a prototype Rolls-Royce armoured car and led armoured cars in the Western Desert against the Senussi in 1916, earning the Distinguished Service Order.
His way of life was princely. Eaton Hall, with its fifty-four bedrooms set in some 11,000 acres, held paintings by Goya, Rubens and Velázquez; he owned hunting lodges in Scotland and in France, two yachts, the Cutty Sark and the Flying Cloud, seventeen Rolls-Royces and a private train between Eaton and London. From 1917 his London home was Bourdon House in Mayfair.
Chanel and the Riviera
Married four times, to Constance Cornwallis-West, Violet Nelson, Loelia Ponsonby and Anne Sullivan, he was married to the second when Vera Bate Lombardi introduced him to Coco Chanel in Monte Carlo in 1923. Their affair lasted about ten years. He gave her jewels and works of art, a house in Mayfair and, in 1927, land at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin where she built her villa, La Pausa. Chanel in turn stayed at his Château Woolsack in France until 1930, and met Winston Churchill through him.
Cannes belonged to that Riviera circuit. A photograph published on this site is captioned as showing the duke and Chanel on the tennis court of the Carlton, the palace opened in 1911 on the Croisette, recognisable by the domes at its seaward corners.
Shadows and a record estate
His politics darkened with age. A staunch conservative, he exposed his brother-in-law, Earl Beauchamp, in 1931, forcing him from public life; he supported antisemitic groups such as the Right Club and joined The Link in 1939, and the historian Richard Griffiths describes him as strongly pro-Nazi. That year he lobbied for a negotiated settlement of the Danzig crisis.
He died of a coronary thrombosis on 19 July 1953 at Loch More Lodge in Sutherland, aged seventy-four, and was buried at Eccleston, near Eaton Hall. Leaving only daughters, he was succeeded by his cousin William. His estate paid a record £18 million in death duties, a debt that took until 1964 to settle.
Sources Wikipedia (EN), “Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster” · Wikipedia (FR), “Coco Chanel” · Wikipedia (EN), “Carlton Hotel, Cannes”
In the grand hotels
1925 Bendor, The 2nd Duke of Westminster and England's wealthies man spends a lot of time on the côte d'Azur. He spends his time between his yacht « The Flying Cloud », Monaco and Cannes. His passion is to offere extravagant presents to beautiful women. in Monaco he meets Coco Chanel who becomes his new girlfriend.
and England's wealthies man spends a lot of time on the côte d'Azur. He spends his time between his yacht « The Flying Cloud », Monaco and Cannes. His passion is to offere extravagant presents to beautiful women. in Monaco he meets Coco Chanel who becomes his new girlfriend.
